Why be a developer at Box UK?

A good company culture is central to job satisfaction; in this post Ian Jenkins explores how Box UK offers the ideal developer environment.

By
Ian Jenkins
• Dec 21st, 2012

Disclaimer!

Ok, I know what you’re thinking: we’re recruiting, so wouldn’t it be a great marketing tool to get one of the staff to write a blog post about how great working at Box UK is. We’ll get one of the developers to tell his story about how amazing we all are. New staff > new work > profit, right?

Well despite that clever (yet obvious) approach, that isn’t the case here. This post was entirely my own initiative as I really do want to share with people what an awesome place Box UK is to work. As some of our devs might say, I want to make people jelly.

Perks and benefits

So, why is Box UK such a great place to work?

Well, there are a number of ‘nice’ benefits; you get a Herman Miller chair, two large screen monitors and a choice of operating system, among many other perks (a full list of benefits has been detailed in this blog post). Most importantly however, you get a culture that is first class, and it’s this I wish to spend most of this blog post writing about.

Thinkers and tinkerers

Culture: “An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning”

(There was the obligatory Wikipedia quote, and I think it sums it up perfectly.)

If you’re a developer then Box UK is full of you; people will get you, people will understand what makes you passionate, what makes you happy, what makes you sad and ultimately what makes you want to come to work every day.

You know that thing you saw on the interwebs and told your mates down the pub and they just looked at you funny? Well at Box UK we do know that thing, and we’ve probably talked about it on our HipChat channel, or if it’s a new piece of kit we’re probably already ‘unboxing’ it.

This brings me nicely on to what makes the culture here so strong: the people.

I’ve been in jobs, sports teams, groom parties where the team has not been as strong as the one we have assembled here at Box. Box UK realises that every single member of staff can make a difference, and works meticulously to ensure that only people who will make a difference to the company are employed. This results in a strong group of learners, thinkers and tinkerers all working towards the common goal of making a real impact. An impact on our customers, our peers and our industry.

Balance

I am yet to find a developer at Box I determine to be ‘the best’. My opinion literally changes weekly, so strong is the team. I think the key here is balance. One developer may have superb communication skills, one guy may work extremely hard to ensure our core products are of the highest standard, another guy will learn a new language, tool, methodology so effortlessly you just have to admire them. We simply don’t have a ‘best developer’. We have a group of seniors who set the standard, but we are so strong as a collection, that is the way we work most effectively.

As a keen sportsman I have quite often heard the phrase ‘to make a good team, you need players who are different’. A Welsh rugby team full of Shane Williams would never win the Grand Slam and at Box UK we similarly strive to have the right mix of wingers and props to ensure that we are continually learning and pushing things forward.

Learning

As I mentioned subtly at the end of the last paragraph, learning really is at the spearhead of all that is good about Box UK. We understand that you never, NEVER, stop learning. If I was asked (and I have been) ‘what would I get out of working for Box UK?’ I think my overriding answer would be (and has been) ‘well, you will learn lots’.

Learning should not be underestimated – it is absolutely key to everything we do in life. Box UK is all about, nay, obsessed with learning. It is the thing that gets people most excited in our office (with the fruit delivery and occasional Krispy Kremes a close second and third).

If you’ve seen our various tech posts or the open-source libraries we have released, learning is at the forefront of everything we do here at Box UK. We want to be better. We can always improve. We are the donkey chasing the proverbial carrot that is perfection. Perfection is an impossible destination, yet we’ll try damn hard to get there.

If I’ve succeeded in making you jelly, and you think Box UK is the place for you, check out our Developer vacancies to find out how to join the team.

About the author

Ian Jenkins

Ian Jenkins is a Principal Developer at Box UK. Ian works mostly with PHP, but loves trying out new things. When not sat in front of a computer, he likes to read, watch films and follow sport. Ian thinks he is the only blog contributor who does not play the guitar.